By TYLER SLINKARD
Guest Columnist

Over the last few years, states throughout the U.S. have begun to repeal or restructure existing gun restriction (laws). Currently, legislation like Missouri Senate Bill 731, which would allow concealed carry on college campuses, is making its way through the Missouri legislature, as well as through the minds of many college students. Concerns have begun to arise over whether pushing college campuses to embrace the culture of guns is legitimate or not. All of these concerns are valid in the university’s drive to promote the safety and well-being of students on campus. Unless people are willing to stand up against this drive to legalize concealed carry on campus, we could very well make a decision with devastating consequences.

Gun Safety

There are legitimate issues regarding the validity of dangerous weaponry on a traditionally unarmed area. Consider first how guns determine the level of safety even within one’s home. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine explained how guns led to an increase in an individual’s risk of death by 40 to 170 percent (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2015). That study is further complemented by the American Journal of Epidemiology, which showed that “persons with guns in the home were at greater risk of dying from a homicide in the home than those without guns in the home.” Specifically, the AJE determined that the increased risk amounted to upwards of 90 percent (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2015).

While there are, of course, instances of civilians using weapons to counteract their assailants, the instances of the inverse are just as prevalent, if not far more likely. For instance, a commonly touted argument that guns save 2.5 million lives annually, is founded upon a study that is methodologically questionable. The study, carried out by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,” relies on only 66 responses in a telephone survey of 5,000 people. Those numbers were then multiplied out to represent 200 million Americans. David Hemenway in Policy and Perspective: Survey Research and Self-Defense Gun Use: An Explanation of Extreme Overestimates (1997) carried out the review that showed Kleck and Gertz’s study to be invalid (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2015).

The concern that people opposed to concealed carry on campuses have is that more violence is the inevitable result. As last year’s debate erupted over Texas colleges being forced to allow concealed carry on campus, retired Admiral William McRaven, who is a former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command and now sits as chancellor of the University of Texas System, expressed his concern over the presence of handguns leading to a rise in “accidental shootings and self-inflicted wounds” (NPR, 2015). A major sticking point for Admiral McRaven is the “high stress” environment that college campuses are prone to create (NPR, 2015). Admiral McRaven spoke out strongly against the Texas bill authorizing concealed carry and expressed how he was “disappointed that the bill passed” (NPR, 2015). Of course, why would he not be? As one particular FBI report examining 160 active shooting incidents from 2000-2013 concluded, only “one incident was stopped by a concealed carry permit holder, and that happened to be a Marine…….By comparison, 21 active shooters were stopped by unarmed citizens” (The Trace, 2015). Even if one removes the active shooter situations, the issue of accidental shootings increases. One study concluded that even “in the U.S. military, from 2003-11, more than 90 soldiers died from negligent discharges,” and these are extremely well trained professionals, especially compared to the average college student (The Trace, 2015).

Concealed Carry Training

A caveat to the issue of gun safety is the training that concealed carry holders have to obtain. Those who seek to obtain a concealed carry permit do undergo some training in the process. Specifically, the restrictions that the state of Missouri has placed are that “you must first complete a firearms safety course at least eight hours in length. Check with your local sheriff’s office for the most recent qualification standards. Once the firearms safety course is complete, the next step is to apply for the permit at your local sheriff’s office” (Missouri State Highway Patrol, 2015). The Missouri legislature’s drive to weaken gun restrictions, including lowering the age of concealed carry to 19, has at minimum coincided with higher gun homicide rates. One noted researcher and director at the John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, Daniel Webster, “found that in the first six years after the state (Missouri) repealed the requirement for comprehensive background checks and purchase permits, the gun homicide rate was 16 percent higher than it was the six years before” (The New York Times, 2015). Even after controlling for “poverty and other factors that could influence the homicide rate, and taking into account homicide rates in other states, the result was slightly higher, rising by 18 percent” (The New York Times, 2015). How does that play out on a national scale? Well, in 2012, “there were 8,855 criminal gun homicides in the FBI’s homicide database, but only 258 gun killings by private citizens that were deemed justifiable, which the FBI defines as ‘the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.’ That works out to one justifiable gun death for every 34 unjustifiable gun deaths” (Washington Post, 2015).

One notable review of these concealed carry policies came by the way of David Chipman, a former ATF agent and SWAT team member.  Chipman explained how, “Training for a potentially deadly encounter meant, at a minimum, qualifying four times a year throughout” his “25-year career. And this wasn’t just shooting paper—it meant doing extensive tactical exercises. And when” he “was on the SWAT team” he “had to undergo monthly tactical training” (The Nation, 2015). Those that say the correct course of action for combating violence and criminal activity on college campuses is to arm a group of people that are primarily civilians only perpetuates the failure of existing gun policy.

Concealed carry advocates generally resort to a “good guy with a gun” line of argument which fails to hold any definitive ground in this debate. In 2015, Christopher Mercer began a bloody killing spree at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. Mercer would shoot 16 people before taking his own life. Under Oregon law, concealed carry was permitted on college campuses. One student on the campus at the time of the attack was Air Force Veteran John Parker who had a concealed carry weapon. Parker told MSNBC how luckily he and his friends “made the choice not to get involved.” In fact, Parker expressed the commonly held concern by those opposed to concealed carry on campus, that they “could have” been “opened….up to being potential targets themselves” (Politico, 2015). The position that Parker took is one of logic and reason. Active shooter situations are not a time for people whose only combat experience is shooting at a piece of paper on the weekend to play the hero. After a single mass shooting occurred at the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, Australia in 1996, “a public outcry spurred a national consensus to severely restrict firearms” (The New York Times, 2015). In the 20 years since, there has not been a single mass killing. The laws that Australia passed “are more stringent than those of any state in the United States, including California” (The New York Times, 2015). However, the narratives between the U.S. and Australia are fundamentally different. America has become a place of absolutist rights instead of rational policy making.

Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is a significant issue on college campuses. The statistics are clear that “One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college” (National Sexual Violence Resource Center). Of all sexual assaults on college campuses, “More than 90 percent” of assault survivors “do not report the assault;” thus, the numbers are definitely larger (National Sexual Violence Resource Center). The argument that guns are a solution to college rape is an insult to those fighting to prevent it. David Hemenway reviewed the data from 2007-11 in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and concluded that survivors of rape are almost never able to beat back an attacker with a gun (The Trace, 2015). The issue of sexual assault would only be more complicated by a higher prevalence of guns. Do we really want armed men at fraternity parties with such a high concentration of alcohol? The efforts of faculty, students and, most definitely, the government should be directed at practices that have been proven to reduce sexual assault, such as safe drinking practices or bystander intervention.

A study examining Clery Act data, “which compiles information about crimes committed on or near college campuses,” found that “crime rates actually increased in” states like Utah and Colorado “after campus carry was carried out” (The Trace, 2015). In Utah, “campus rape increased nearly 50 percent between 2012 and 2013,” while in Colorado, “the rate of forcible rape increased nearly 25 percent in 2012 and 36 percent in 2013” (The Trace, 2015). These numbers, of course, only provide a relatively small insight into the complexity of sexual assaults on college campuses. The idea that more guns equate to less sexual assault is just as ridiculous as the claim that high taxes always hurt economic growth. John D. Foubert from Oklahoma State University and president of One in Four, explained in an interview with The New York Times last year that the use of sexual assault to tout pro-gun policies “reflects a misunderstanding of sexual assaults in general” (The New York Times, 2015).

To carry or not to carry?

The debate over gun ownership and policies like concealed carry are far from over. There are many important issues that could not be addressed here, such as the increased risk of successful suicide. In many ways, much as the people of previous generations have had to battle over contentious and sometimes deadly issues, we have the same responsibility. Our professors, police officers and administration officials have dedicated their time and resources to the success of our individual aspirations. The solution to gun violence is not the incorporation of more guns into society. It is the creation of a society devoid of a gun culture. The advocates of ending gun violence need to attempt to stop dancing around this pre-structured debate of appeasing people that are adamantly pro-gun. There is nothing wrong with accepting an alternative perspective as legitimate, for legitimacy’s sake, but guns are a threat to public safety and we as the generations of today need to take a stand against one of the greatest killers of our time.